HER BODYGUARD

“No.” She said, She spoke softly. Without animosity, but with what seemed to him a deep and infinite sadness. “Please. Can we just go to the apartment? I couldn’t bear to go back in there now.”

He considered suggesting that they take rooms at the motel behind the roadhouse to wait out the storm. But she was in no condition to spend the night in some cheap motor lodge.

He stared at her. “You’re certain you want to risk the highway in this weather?” he asked one more time.

She nodded, still staring straight ahead. “Please. Let’s just go.” She said.

So off they went.

————————–

The snow came down harder. And the wind blew the thick whiteness horizontally, straight at the windshield. He drove slowly, with care.

But it was bad and getting worse. Almost immediately, visibility went from poor to practically nothing. He started thinking about suggesting again that it would be safer to turn around and go back. But by now he wasn’t sure if that actually would be safer. He couldn’t see the shoulder on either side of the road. And if another vehicle appeared while he was trying to turn… that was going to be another problem.

He kept going forward. The wipers labored to clear the snow from the glass. Kimberly sat beside him, silent. And very still.

She would be all right. Of course she would. She was a strong and admirable woman with a core of steel. He knew that because even after all she had been through she still found a way to move on like nothing had happened.

He just needed to get her back to safety at her apartment and everything would be all right. Just needed to…

Suddenly Kimberly gasped.

Another car had appeared, coming on way too fast in the opposite direction. He couldn’t actually see the vehicle yet. Just four blinding lights: a pair of headlights and another pair higher up, the kind the local ranchers sometimes mounted above the windshield.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“Asher!” Kimberly whispered low. “Oh, my God…” She said,

“It’s all right,” he told her, though she had to know that it wasn’t.

“Asher, I’m so sorry. So sorry about everything….” She said, her voice shook.

“Shh,” he soothed. And lied again. “It’s all right.” He leaned on the horn.

But it did no good.

The four blinding beams of light started turning. All at once, they illuminated the far side of the road as the vehicle itself appeared, a brown pickup skidding sideways, no longer in the opposite lane but straight ahead in theirs and sliding fast right for them.

Asher saw the driver in the pickup’s side window. An old fellow in a straw hat, eyes like two black holes, mouth agape.

There was only one choice and Asher took it. He turned the wheel sharply toward the shoulder. The pickup whipped by, clipping them in the rear as it went, causing a bone-jarring second of impact, but then skidding on, vanishing into the maelstrom behind them.

He tried to swerve the wheel back into the lane. But it was no good. The snow-thick, icy road surface provided no purchase. The SUV kept going, right over the bank and off the road.

—————————–

Kimberly’s spinning mind couldn’t keep up with the crash as it happened. She saw the brown truck skidding sideways at them, the face of a terrified old man in a big hat. And then, all at once they were over the side of the road, the front of the SUV suddenly pointing straight down. She closed her eyes, braced herself and waited to die as they dropped off the edge of the cliff.

But it wasn’t a cliff, after all.

They hit bottom almost instantly, the nose of the SUV coming up a little and leveling out, the impact stunning enough to send a jolt of pure agony singing up her spine. A giant fluffy wall appeared, came straight at her and smacked her in the face and chest. It was already deflating when she realized it was the airbag.

By then, the SUV had stopped moving. The only sounds were the creaks and the cracking and strange airy signs of a vehicle that would probably never be drivable again.

“Kim. My God…” Asher said. He was half out of his seat, bending close to her. “Kimberly, are you…?”

It was the first time she had ever seen him that way. Showing any emotion. It warmed her heart to see him that way. She dared to reach out, to touch his dear, forbidden face. Real. Warm. A little rough with a day’s worth of beard, just she fantasized about it. Just as it had been in her lonely, tortured dreams.

“You just called me Kim…” She said stupidly.

“My God,” he said again. “Are you injured?”

She closed her eyes, ran a quick physical inventory. When she opened them, she dared a nervous smile. “No. I’m all right. Pretty shaken up, but all right.” She said,

“Oh. Thank God.” he said.

“You?” she asked him.

“Fine,” he said quickly, dismissing his own condition as if his well being didn’t matter.

She thought of the other driver then, and stiffened.

“What is it?” he demanded. “What hurts? Tell me.”

“That poor old man in the truck…” She reached over and unhooked her seat belt. “We have to get out, go to him. That pickup must have crashed.” She said,

“Wait.” Asher said, stopping her.

“But, Asher…” Kimberly said. “We have to check on him”

“I’ll call for an ambulance.” He spoke to the thing in his ear. “Call nine-one-one.” She waited anxiously for him to ask for an ambulance. But a moment later, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and checked the display.

“What?” she demanded.

He looked at her again. “No signal. Must be the storm.”

“Oh, no…” Kimberly said, looking worried and blaming herself for everything.

He put the phone away and rehooked his seat belt. “Put your belt back on,” he said.

She did what he asked. “What are you going to do?” she asked him.

“See if I can get us going again, get us out of this ditch,” he replied.

It could be possible, couldn’t it? The headlights were still working. They gleamed strangely, half buried in the snowbank the vehicle had scraped up like a plow as they hit the ditch.